Through the Looking Glass
by WharfedaleTiger
Summary: Lyra is older now, wiser and more experienced, but there are darker forces at work here than she has faced before, continually watching and waiting to strike. Only one man can save her, and cure the longing in her heart... Lyra/Roger, Read 'n' Review
1. Prologue

**Hello, and welcome to my first fanfiction. This is just a prologue with the passage from Lyras Oxford which inspired me and a little opener. I apologise profusley for any spelling and grammar errors I've made (Like, I think, my misspelling of profusley) but I have dislexia, little time due to exams and no beta reader so I hope you'll excuse them. Anyways, here you go, oh and if you can be bothered please read and review. Constructive critics are welcome.**

"_It's easy to imagine how they might have turned up, though. The world is full of things like that: old postcards, theatre programmes, leaflets about bomb-proofing your cellar, greetings cards, photograph albums, holiday brochures, instruction booklets for machine tools, maps, catalogues, railway timetables, menu cards from long-gone cruise liners - all kinds of things that once served a real and useful purpose, but have now become cut adrift from the things and the people they relate to. _

_They might have come from anywhere. They might have come from other worlds. That scribbled-on map, that publisher's catalogue - they might have been put down absent-mindedly in another universe, and been blown by a chance wind through an open window, to find themselves after many adventures on a market-stall in our world. _

_All these tattered old bits and pieces have a history and a meaning. A group of them together can seem like the traces left by an ionising particle in a bubble chamber: they draw the line of a path taken by something too mysterious to see. That path is a story, of course. What scientists do when they look at the line of bubbles on the screen is work out the story of the particle that made them: what sort of particle it must have been, and what caused it to move in that way, and how long it was likely to continue. _

_Dr Mary Malone would have been familiar with that sort of story in the course of her search for dark matter. But it might not have occurred to her, for example, when she sent a postcard to an old friend shortly after arriving in Oxford for the first time, that that card itself would trace part of a story that hadn't yet happened when she wrote it. Perhaps some particles move backwards in time; perhaps the future affects the past in some way we don't understand; or perhaps the universe is simply more aware than we are. There are many things we haven't yet learned how to read." –P.Pullman, Lyra's Oxford_

The night was dark and foul, the glistening spires and towers of the collages dripping dashed by sleet which banged against the slates. A man wandering the streets with his bloodhound glanced upwards towards a ray of light emitting from one of the tower windows before pulling is oilskins about him and sauntering on, cap pulled down to keep the worst of the rain off his eyes. He carried on wandering through darkened alleys and winding streets seemingly lost in though and unaware of his destination.

The bloodhound growled, and the man looked up once more and saw nothing but empty space filled with falling water. He shrugged his shoulders again, and pulled his coat round him in another futile attempt to keep out the water that seemed to find the kinks in the oilskin armour instinctively. Then he looked down and seemed intrigued by some scrap of paper on the floor. He bent and picked it up, half disintegrating at his touch. Much of the ink had run but a few words where still legible. The man managed to pick out a few disparate words-New, Audi and A-12 though he struggled to make sense of them without any frame of reference.

He then did something curious. He looked up once more and then reached into his pocket to pull out an instrument. At first glance it appeared to be a miniature telescope or looking glass, with a wooden casing bound together by some unfamiliar process. Its glass was odd, it was evidently not glass nor any other sort of normal lens judging by the orange glint it gave as the light from the aranbic lamp in the corner struck it.

The man raised the instrument and looked up and then gasped at the hundreds of golden particles he saw. Dust. However it was not the very fact that he could see dust that was so amazing, he had seen it many times before through the device, but it was the eddies and whirls that the Dust was twisting into, the patterns in made as it shifted and changed. It was almost as if it was searching, for something, for someone. It was pouring into this world from another in an unabating flow.

The man put his spyglass away and walked away, his bloodhound trotting obediently behind him. And even as he did so another piece of paper blew into the wind and rain, as if from nowhere.


	2. Beyond the Buff

**And so on from that preview to a quick-fire second chapter. I hope you enjoy it. Again apologies for mistakes.**

Imagine for one moment an observer perched on top of the Cardinals cathedral, facing from its spires towards Broadgates Hall collage, watching the small alley that runs off Philosophers' Avenue, and intersects neatly with St Aldates street and another smaller alley which is called variously Broadgates Buff and Broadgates Backside, depending on which collage you go to.

Imagine watching that small intersection for day after tireless day, watching the flow of the air and the behaviour of the inhabitants. A observant watcher may have noticed several odd happenings which may not be noticed by the less reverent, he would notice the odd why in which the swirling wind picks up the skirts and robes of the passing scholars, in a manner that one could comment as remarkable for such an exposed intersection. He may also notice the odd appearance of various papers that seemingly appear at random without any visible cause or explanation. Finally he may notice the visit every night of a man and his Bloodhound, cap drawn low and oilskin wrapped round an ample waist. A truly meticulous observer would note the man's arrival at exactly 12 minute past midnight and his odd behaviour. Every night he seemingly examines the nights sky with a small portable telescope before muttering to himself and wandering away.

There is one last thing that even the most observant observer may miss, and that is the behaviour of these winds when one particular young woman walks past. How they whip at her skirts as if trying to prevent her from leaving, as if trying to communicate some message to her. The identity of this girl will not be in question to any seasoned Oxford watcher, for her exploits and the rumours of her exploits have spread far and wide. It is said that she is a Queen of Witches, that her daemon has been seen alone when she was in a different building, that she is a friend of the bear king and that she knows every slate on the roofs of Oxford.

Of course, Lyra Belaqua, or as she prefers to be known, Lyra Silvertounge has full knowledge of these rumours and there power. Indeed she instigated several of them herself, and embellished several others. They are both her biggest danger and her biggest protection, for she is a known enemy of the church, a known heretic and a free thinker who has been involved in all the biggest events in the Kingdom of Brytain of the last 10 years, and all the theological crises of the last 15. However, so far her connections and wealth have meant that she has remained protected for the worst the wining church can throw at her, not matter how damaged her reputation has become.

She is, of course, no longer truly a young woman. She's 36 and is long past her physical peek where she once captivated a man's heart through one look. She was never a true beauty, unlike he mother, but she possessed a fierce energy that entranced most men. She is notoriously easy to fall in love with and even as she ends her natural peak there are still a dozen or more men who visit her daily with promises of devotion and a hundred more who have attempted to win her heart. She will, however, have none of it claiming that she is promised to another, unknown man.

In that, like in so many things, she is like her farther. He too possessed that driving passion which fires the heart and the brain. He too as a man whom the church called heretic, who stood against the established authority in open rebellion until his mysterious disappearance in the arctic a quarter of a century ago in the great calamity that befell that region and which claimed both father and mother though the girl herself still refuses to accept their deaths.

And so Lyra Silvertounge, the Lady Belaqua drifts through life, an antagonistic scholar at Jordon Collage where she currently resides, delving deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the Alethiometer and the heretical study of Dust and Barden-Stokes, on which she is considered the world's foremost expert.

Our observer is now moving, from rooftop to rooftop, scurrying out of sight towards her until he alights on her shoulder, nuzzling her face gently. Her fellow travellers look shocked at his sudden appearance from above, before consoling themselves with rational explanations. "So what did you see Pan?" She whispers too him, "Was he here again?"

"Like clockwork," the Pine Martin says, as she begins to sit and fiddle with the clasps on what appears to be a leather purse, "I still can't see what he's looking at though-and I can't get close enough to see what the Spyglass is. Everytime I get too close that bloodhound spots me. There's something odd there though, I can't tell quite what he is at all."

The girl pulls out a golden oval from the leather pouch and opens it like you would a compass, "Well we can soon find out."

"But you don't have the books." The Martin retorts, "Even you're not that good yet."

"I'm going to try anyways, I reckon I'm close now and I feel really...sure...that I can do it Pan. Keep a look out for me." At these she stares at the alethiometers screen and seems to fall into a trance, so fully is she concentrating on the darts of the one thin needle. Finally she surfaces again, half triumphant and half exhausted.

"Did you do it?" The look on her face tells him.

"It was so odd Pan, I was there and then...I've never seen it so confused since we wanted to remake the knife. It doesn't seem to know what that man is, and then it kept telling me to look up-but that if I did there would be death. And...oh Pan...it mentioned Roger. That he was coming for me or something like that, and, oh, I don't know it was just so odd... But then it kept saying look up, and that if I didn't he'd never find me..." And with that both heads turned skywards.

Unusually for this wettest of summers it was a nice day with not a cloud in the sky. Yet there was a thin sliver of gray visible directly above them, as though somebody had cut a hole in the sky and replaced it with cloud. And even as they watched a sheet of paper floated out of the hole and down on a gentle breeze towards Lyra and Pan. She caught it and it almost dissolved in her hands, for it was as wet from the rain that was clattering down in the other world.

They looked up once more as a figure jumped through the window from that world to this.

**And so chapter two is done, ended on a cliffhanger as per usual with these things. I must also now insert a warning about one of the next few chapters (I havn't decided on the chapter divisions yet, so I can't say exactly which one) however one will contain reference to sex, but they arn't graphic/direct so I have decided it isn't really an M story.**

**  
Thanks for reading, R 'n' R is you will, and on we go!**


	3. The Rookery Again

Observe our two protagonists, soon to become three; leaping to the feet and wonderment, scattering passersby like so much loose paper. Fortunately for them the alarmed looks are reserved for their sudden actions, no one else seems to have noticed the boy leaping from midair.

Except for the man with the Spyglass who folds it back down and whistles to his dog before leaving his days long vigil on the rooftops. As he troops down the stairs, Lyra and Pan rush up the stairs in the opposing building having found the front door unlocked. They cross two stories at an incredible rate with pan scampering ahead, his form being more efficient than Lyras dress ridden legs at climbing. They reach the houses attic and move quickly towards the high clasped window to the right, undoing it as quickly as Lyras hands allow. Peering out they see nothing but sun drenched slates and the street below. The window appeared to have closed as quickly and mysteriously as it had opened.

Lyra knew of course, that there were only two causes of the window opening, either someone had a cut an opening or there had been a slight shift in the world alignment opening a natural window. Neither seemed likely to her, she had researched both for a thesis and discovered that for a natural window to open there where usually extreme weather and natural phenomena as had been visited upon the arctic when her father had cut a bridge between the worlds. She was sure it wouldn't be the knife either, as Will had sworn to destroy it and she bet her life on him keeping his word. Still the thought caused her heart to lift monetarily. She dismissed the thought in an instant-she had long dismissed her love and obsession with Will as a childish crush with no real meaning.

They looked around the room for possible hiding places, but there where hundreds. The room was littered with old artefacts that some old biddy had been hoarding. There was a grand piano in one corner with a number of old pictures leaning against it to slowly mould while a full length dresser filled the opposing wall, the figure could be hiding in anyone of its draws. The rest of the room was a chaotic riot of broken furniture and deep shadows. She knew that it would be virtually impossible to find someone who wanted to remain hidden in such a room.

"The footprints, Lyra," Pan said in low voice that neither the less carried far through the rooms hidden recesses and echoed back to them. Lyra looked down and cursed herself, whoever the figure had been he, it was highly unlikely any women had such big feet and wore boots, had left a trail of damp water that led towards his hiding place in the dresser. Slowly Lyra moved towards the structure, acutely conscious about the danger of her actions, the man could be armed and she would be powerless to stop him. Neither the less her sense of insatiable curiosity drew her to the cupboard.

She reached it and quickly flung open the door, her heart beating hot and fast. Then she recoiled, shocked etched on her face. She tried to stammer something, a name that fluttered past her lips without a sound. Emotions of an incident long ago buried and paid for came back, hitting her mind like bullets. Memories of there all too soon parting, of betrayal and of love.

The man, meanwhile, looked equally shocked but he managed to compose enough to breath a few shocked words, "Lyra, can it really be..." then he lapsed into silence and pulled himself to his feet before stepping out and embracing her. She returned the hug with passion, clinging onto his frame with all the force she could muster.

He was older than she remembered, older than he had been when they had parted for the second time. But he did not look as old as he should have been, as though the past 10 years had merely skipped him by. But the look on that soft, angular face was the same as the one she remembered when she had seen him last, his face contorted with joy. He had aged but his essential spirit had not changed.

He had no daemon.

Some people in Lyras world would have treated him as an abomination, as something inhuman for that but Lyra knew that in truth his daemon was hidden inside of him and that he was still there and still whole, no matter how much she half screamed in imaginary disgust. But it confirmed one thing about thing: This was not the same Roger that she had known and befriended all those years ago. This was not the same Roger whom she had betrayed in front of the Northern Lights and this was not the same Roger whom she had watched dissolve into ecstasy as real air touched his skin... No this was not her Roger.

She released him from the embrace and took a step back, contemplating him. It was truly remarkable how similar he looked to her Roger-give or take 20 years-and she wondered how complete the similarities where. Did he too have that mole on his left collarbone? The one that they used to jab pins in, in an attempt to pop it? Had he grown up as a kitchen skivvy like her Roger? Had he played on the rooftops of Jordon Collage and rescued that rook from the guttering? And what then, what course had his life taken?

They both tried to speak at once, causing an awkward moment before a lapse into yet more silence. Roger was staring, wondering, trying to contemplate how this had happened, which god to pray to in thanks for this mirical. To him Lyra looked older, more mature than the one he had known and loved. The fire in her eyes was just as undimmed but it was offset by a harsher look. She was not his innocent Lyra, she was someone who had been burned by love and knew not to stick her hands back in the flame.

He spoke, slowly first and then more confidently as she listened bagenly and all the time he realised how different she was to his Lyra. His Lyra would have taken command, making orders and overriding his quiet voice. This Lyra was different, she was listening intently to every word with the passion of scholar trying to defeat an opponent. When she spoke it was quietly, using words as sparingly as she could, seeking to learn from him without giving anything away. She didn't trust him.

"Lyra," He said, "It's you isn't it."

"Yes." Flatly, matter of fact.

"But you're not my Lyra are you? Your different, you're..." He lapsed into silence.

"Different? How?" Harsh, unyielding, there was none of the warmth that his Lyra would have provided, and yet, there was that hug. That outpouring of joy and relief that smacked more of his Lyra than this cold and caustic character who refused to show anything at all. He opted for a question.

"Where am I?"

"Your in my world, you jumped through a window from yours into mine and then it closed. Do you know why?"

"A window? You mean this is another world, separate from my own universe." He struggled to comprehend, "I had no idea about that, they say the gods play games with the lives of men but this is ridiculas'..." He looked at her straight on and opted for truth, "Lyra? Am I still alive in this world?"

"No." Sharp, he knew that he had stirred an old wound.

"So they got me here then...where me and you, you know, together?"

"No. You died when you where a child."

"Because in my world we were, Lyra. We fought against them together, we married and where happy by the grace of the gods together. It was you and me always, right since we where nippers in Hacker Collage. But then, a few months ago they took you away from me, we crossed the line between free thought and heresy, or so they said. They put you on trial and..." He began to break down, tears swelling from one swollen cheek and gently cascading down his cheeks but his voice remained steady and for once Lyra was impressed, "...they burnt you for being a witch. We couldn't stop them. Not me, not your father, not your mum, not anyone." He lapsed and sat on the hard wooden boards and Lyra felt an emotion she hadn't felt for years. Pity. She moved forward and sat next to him before instinctively draping an arm round him and pulling him close. She hadn't felt this level of feeling for someone for years.

Perhaps it was tiredness, or the way in which he'd described her death that moved her, but she felt an intense fascination with him. And we from up in our clouded spires watched and approved.

Roger told Lyra everything, and she absorbed and understood it and marvelled. She had never really understood Wills world and its strange contraptions but she could understand Rogers, which seemed far closer to hers than Wills. She was amazed by how similar her story and Rodgers had been.

The crucial turning point, as far as she could tell, was that he wasn't taken by the Gobblers and that they appeared never to have existed. Lyra and Rodger had continued their half-feral existence in Hacker collage, named after an obscure Prime Minister (parliamentary democracy appeared to have developed far earlier in Rogers world), and they had grown up in a usual way. Lyra had gone off to a girls school when she was 14, left at 18 and joined Hacker as a scholar. She and Roger met again then, fallen in love, married and become dissenters against the Church of Baal.

At the birth of their first child Lyra had discovered that her mother still lived, as did her farther. Both where powerful dissidents and they protected her as she investigated Dust and they had been happy for 3 or 4 years. But then Lyra had admitted publically her Atheism and had been burnt at the stake as a Witch who had displeased the Gods, the child along with her. Roger had managed to escape and go on the run, and it had been the Church who he had been running from when he had fallen through the window and into this world.

Lyra tried to discover more, questioning and probing Rogers often hesitant answers, comforting him when she could. The Church of Baal, she discovered, was not mono-theistic but it believed in many gods like the ancient Carthaginians or the Old Danes in her world. Despite these differences she found it incredible how similar the two worlds where-there was far more that linked them than separated them. The church had a far stronger control in Rogers world, and even Roger, a dissident, believed in the Gods. He could not imagine how Lyra could think any other way.

Then there was the matter of age, Roger had been the same age of Lyra in her age and the same appeared to be the case for her otherworld counterpart-yet he seemed to be around 10 years younger. Time seem to behind in that Universe, or maybe it moved differently or something, she had no time to study Roger or his world to explain the cause. Anyway, the calendar they used there was different, using letters instead of numbers, and thus it was hard for Lyra to pinpoint Rogers birthday exactly.

After digesting this information, Lyra began to answer Rogers questions about her own world and her life. She told of how he had died and how she'd gone to the world of the dead and Will and everything... It was a long story, made longer by the extra years she had on Roger, while he was a young man, she was a middle aged women with the views and achievements to match. She told of her life as an Experimental Theologian, her job of questioning the established views on the universe. Like Roger's Lyra she was an atheist, but she claimed to have seen the authority die in front of her, old and crippled. Roger listened and marvelled at the way she changed when she spoke, there passion that infused her voice and the way she captivated him with her stories-for that's all they where to him, stories to fantastical to credit. He half suspected they where lies, similar to the ones that his Lyra had been so notorious for telling. She had not had the experience of the Harpies.

And then, And then she was done, her stories spent, her immediate questions fulfilled, her passion for knowledge abated. She lay there in the golden sunlight that streamed through the attic window, gazing silently at his face. How this boy had grown! She could still see the same contours he had possessed as a youngster, that mischievous smile, the thin face, the high cheekbones. Yet he had also changed. It was a stronger face now; more mature and fractured with worry lines that where unbecoming for a man of his age. It wasn't just time that had weathered him but also experience. Blake. She remembered when she had first read his Songs of Innocence and thought of Roger, his face becoming the emblem of Innocence for her-wide eyed and non-comprehending. But now he was more like the Songs of Experience-harder and more learned but still with that same smile. The little boy lost had been found.

Yet she couldn't shake off a nagging feeling that he was still a little boy. He evidently wasn't. He had loved and lost as much as Lyra had done, he had seen his lover burnt alive but Lyra was still struggling to see him as anything else but that young boy who had rescued the rook on Jordon Roof and looked after it until it was free.

The light turned from golden to red and slowly into a deep blue that marks the onset of night. They had spent all day upstairs, discussing and wondering and waiting. For what she did not know-an angel? Whatever it was the feeling of anticipation had now passed and she felt the sense of restlessness that had been with her throughout her life, the desire to move, to see to think. For a few precious moments she had been rid of it but now it returned. She took charge.

"We need to go." Roger looked up at her from his meditation, "Come on, we can't stay here. Whoever owns this place will be back soon and if we're found here together they'll be...questions." he nodded, understanding.

"And we wouldn't want to tarnish your reputation," he chirped, ever the gentleman.

Lyra let out a long, high, harsh laugh, "i doubt that will be a problem. My reputation is already damaged as it is, another rumour would only enhance it. No, it was more your reputation I was thinking about. You're going to be here for a while, or so it seems, at the last thing you need is for people to thinking you've messing around with me." She raised an eyebrow to imply meaning. Roger looked blank, "Let's just say I'm not known as the most virtuous woman in the world, nor am I expressively liked by the authorities. Now, you can stay at my room tonight and I'll get some friends to come by and see if we can work up a decent back-story for you-we've done this sort of thing before, then we can get you into safely." With this she led him downstairs and into the night.

The great writer of this world, George Thomson, once wrote that 'The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry' and ever is it so. Though Lyra did not know it, things would not be as simple as she planned. Like most humans she had one perspective and could never quite understand the great forces that clashed around her, only occasionally sensing the debris as it struck on of her comrades. Yet these patterns where all the clear from us on high, yet we could do nothing except watch and intervene when that most cruel of Gods, fate, decreed it so.


	4. After bedtime

Thus I will not recount what happened between her and Roger when they returned to her rooms, but it would have been a chief source of the scandal magazines in London had word got out, though I doubt it would have done little more than reinforce a reputation for proscuminity that Lyra already carried. For Roger it was easy, tracing his hands across curves that he was already so familiar with, he longed for his wife to be back with him and, for a night, Lyra was. For Lyra it was little more than gratification, another man to drive another nail in an already dead heart. She had long ago learnt not to feel beyond basic senses.

Yet somewhere inside her something stirred. She barely noticed it amid the passion but it was something that had not happened for what felt like an age, a poppy seed slowly sprouting in the battlefield of her heart, which may one day turn into a field. It may not. Our people have keen sight but we cannot see the future, such a power would make life boring.

The merry sun rose over the spires of Oxford town, bathing the city in the golden light that turned the stones of the collages pink and tickled the river with its light. Business began, students hurrying to their lectures, dons riding bicycles to various tutorial rooms, the fellows where waking, the church bells beating out the new hour and the new day while paperboys bounced their bikes off the cobbles and tossed their papers into open gateways and shoved them through letterboxes.

The Manchester Guardian landed upon Lyra's steps but no woman emerged to collect it. She was sleeping still next to her new lover, who rose and pulled on his old pair of tattered trousers before making his way to the door to gingerly collect it. His presence was duly noted by the man in oilskins sitting reading The Times opposite the house, who filed the information away as useful.

Inside the house there comes a sound of metal on metal and the wonderful aroma of grilling meat, and the chatter of frying eggs. Roger is cooking, having raided Lyra's almost bare cupboards for food and smattering it on the barley used Arga. Finally he loads the collection on a tray and carries it up the flight of stairs to her tower bedroom where she still lies asleep. He pokes her. She groans, so he gives her a kick and this, finally, wakes her from her slumber.

She's indignant at first "What the hell was that for?" But Roger wins her over with a cheeky smile and grin and indicates to the plate.

"Brekey, sleepyhead." Despite all the changes his accent is still that uniquely English mix of soil and stone and to Lyra it sounds perfect. She tucks in, ravenously, thanking Rodger for it and barley hiding her modesty with a blanket and, for a moment, she is his Lyra. Then Pan jumps up to join her in her consumption and that image is so cruelly dispelled that he feels compelled to leave the room.

He takes the opportunity to look around her ample house. It's has two floors on the corner of Jordon and where Brasenose Collage is in his world, and he looks around the living room, bathroom and kitchen with amazement, for even the Cardinals of his world do not match this for splendour. He notes the walls covered with groaning bookcases and picks out one at random "_Lectures on Theoretical Physics-Arnold Summerfeild.' _He opens a page and finds it an incomprehensible mix of figures and long words. In the hope of finding something more enlightening he picked another book from the top shelf. The title shocked him '_The Creation of the World-Lyra Belaqua' _he opened it was found it was hundreds of pages of long, flowing type. At random he picked out a passage from an early segment.

'_The flatness problem, which has also been christened by Stresemann as the oldness problem with my model, is an observational problem associated with a __Walker metric_._.__ The universe may have positive, negative or zero spatial __curvature__ depending on its total energy density. Curvature is negative if its density is less than the __critical density__, positive if greater, and zero at the critical density, in which case space is said to be __flat__. The problem he claims to have found is that any small departure from the critical density grows with time, and yet the universe today remains very close to flat. Given that a natural timescale for departure from flatness might be the__ Planck time__, 10__−43__ seconds, the fact that the universe has reached neither of my theories of its end (__Heat Death nor a Big Crunch)__ after billions of years requires some explanation. For instance, even at the relatively late age of a few minutes (the time of nucleosynthesis), the universe must have been within one part in 10__14__ of the critical density, or it would not exist as it does today, or so he claims. _

_In response I offer a new theory which I have christened the inflationary theory. During the inflationary period, space-time expanded to such an extent that its curvature would have been smoothed out. Thus, I believe that inflation drove the universe to a very nearly spatially flat state...'_

There was the sound of 6 padding feet entering the room. Lyra was standing by his shoulder, peering at the work he was reading. "Did you really write this?" He asked, "

Yes," came the responce, with a touch of sadness, "sadly that's the last copy in existence." He looked at her quizzically, "The church didn't like it." She explained, "It offered a solution to the problem of creation without resort to any god, and they didn't like that. First they sent thinkers to poke holes in my theory and when I beat them they just got rid of it." Sighing, "Burnt every last copy and they wanted to throw me into jail as well, but I've got enough protection to avoid that for now, but even that will only last for so long. I'm too outrageous, too different, I do things that respectable young women aren't supposed to-like last night for example, 36 year old Dames arn't supposed to do that sort of thing. We aren't supposed to write books on physics, or take about Baden-Stokes openly, or say we've been to other worlds, or talk to witches or... Well, anything I do really. We're supposed to sit at home having kids and doing knitting, leave the thinking too the men." She put her hand on his shoulder. She had changed now; into a dull brown dress which had absolutely no distinguishing features either. "Look, we'd better get out of here, I'll take you down to London and introduce you to some...friends...they'll ferry you away to New Denmark and you can set up a new life there."

Roger was distraught, he turns to face her, grabbing her arm roughly as he does so for emphasis, "I can't go away, not now, I want to stay here, with you!"

"Roger, you can't, it's far too dangerous. They'll come for me any day now, and if they find you here then you'll be caught as well. I can't get away-New Denmark may not be under as much church control as Brytain but they still have influence-if I leave they'll just drag me back. Its you only chance." Rodger tried to protest more, arguing that he had faced danger before and was prepared to do so again, that he couldn't leave her alone here, with no protection. Bu she continues to disagree, her sheer stubboness overpowering his misgivings. They prepare to leave.

But just before they do so Lyra does something unexpected. She goes to the kitchen and pulls open the bottom of the Arga and reaches inside. A creek reverberates around the room, followed by the sound of metal upon metal and then she pulls out a thick volume and hands it to Rodger. It was untitled, and she speaks to him a low whisper, seemingly anxious about being overheard, "Take this with you, don't show it too anyone, it ain't safe. When you get to New Denmark get it sent to the King of the Bears, right? He knows what to do with it. You can read it if you want, it's all true, every word." He stuffs it in his duffle bag amid a spare set of clothes that Lyra had lent him and some provisions for the journey.

And then, they where off.


	5. A meeting of Elders

**Apologies for the length of time till this update, I've been busy with various concerts, exams and so forth and to be honest I'd completely forgotten about this fanfiction. Nonetheless I've managed to get another chapter together for all those who are reading.**

**Nimfalath, thanks for the review, I know that my spelling isn't always correct (or even close to correct) and my grammar is often in need of some work. I do spellcheck my work, but often I a) Choose the wrong spelling, b) have already used the wrong word or c) the spellcheck can't work out what the hell I want to say. If theres anyone who wants to beta read this I'd be very glad of it!**

**Anyways, onwards into the next chapter which I hope will further the story slightly more than the one before. Enjoy...**

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A zeppelin is a wonderful invention, convenient, foolish and stupid to such equal measure that there is only one species in all the universes that could have invented it and utilised it as their primary mode of transport. It is this special mix of genius that makes humanity so common across the worlds, and so fascinating to observe. Only one race could be so stupid to think that it could challenge the gods and so brilliant as too achieve it.

Lyra Silvertongue is showing this specific mix now, she has been clever enough to solve many of the mysteries of the universe but stupid enough to publish these views. She is right to think that the Church seeks to remove her from the debate, but her real mistake is in thinking that no one else will use her research for their own ends. She isn't the only one to have looked into the link between the worlds and, in some ways; she has done remarkably well considering her limited resources. But others have built on her work, they've delved deeper, gone further, thought harder and now they have a plan.

All will be revealed in due course, but for now we are focusing on Roger and Lyra as they head south, Roger marvelling as the world passes beneath them and Lyra gently dozing in her seat. They're covering the ground quickly and before long the towers of London loom up beneath them. The Zeppelin drops quickly towards the port and is quickly anchored, the drawbridge dropped and the passengers exit as the gas-bag begins to be refilled.

Once out of the port building Lyra whistles for a cab and they are quickly swept away to an address that Roger couldn't quite pick out amid the bustle of the city. He's never felt anything like this place; never could he have imagined a world like this existing beyond his own. Everything is so foreign yet so familiar, in the Londarium of his own world the huge cathedral that they pass on the way has a huge spire, not a great dome. The Royal Palace in his world has been replaced by something that Lyra calls a 'parliament.' Like a wide eyed child he watches the world as it flits past.

Then, abruptly they stop in front a nondescript set of houses on the dividing line between the posher areas of town and the slums of the Ham. In style it's late Georgian, though the stone seems almost new, suggesting that it was built far more recently. It's an imposing, grand structure, and again Roger stares at it in awe as Lyra climbs the steps that lead to the front door and knocks twice. She motions at him to follow and the door swings silently open. A butler bows low, "Dame Belaqua, it is good to see you again.'

"Harold," Lyra replies and steps in, "It is good to see you as well, it's been some time."

"Indeed it has my Lady, and who is your companion." He raises an eyebrow at this and Roger suddenly gets the impression that the two know each other far better than they seem. This relation seems more equal to equal than Mistress to servant.

"That will be revealed in due course, is your mistress in?" The man's daemon wanders in and Roger is momentarily frightened to see it is a huge snow leopard, but then Pan leaps off Lyra's shoulder and nuzzles in beast and Roger finds his fears suddenly assuaged. He is not yet used to such displays of familiarity between daemons, finding there presence unnerving at best. His perception of them varies between that of pet and Hades temptresses depending on his mood; he has not yet understood the key relationship between daemon and person, the psychic relationship between body, soul and mind.

"Mistress Clara is waiting for in the drawing room," Harold replies.

"Are the others here yet?" Lyra asks, and Harold shakes his head,

"You are the first; shall I take madam and her companion through?"

"Lead on Harold." And he moves, his feet barley making a sound over the marble floor while Lyra's heels click and Rogers boots clump. He leads them up a set of stairs, and then through a room in which an entire wall is covered in one large mirror, before turning into a corridor and swinging open the first door he comes too. He coughs loudly and then steps in, "May I present Dame Lyra Belaqua and a companion."

Lyra and Roger enter and a find a room which would most appropriately been described as plush. A heavy carpet lies on the floor, while in an ornate fireplace a few embers bubble. In one of many comfortable chairs that are scattered around the room and older woman slouches, her chaffinch daemon perched on a low central table. She looks up as Lyra enters and a smile appears beneath an aged brow.

"Lyra," She says suddenly and with sped remarkable for a woman of her age rises from the chair and embraces the woman. "Grandmother." Lyra replies and returns the hug, "You're keeping well?"

"All the better for seeing you, take a seat." She collapses back into her armchair and now Roger can see how truly ancient she is-her hands covered in blue-grey blotches and her back almost bent double with the weight of long grey locks that drift down from her head almost to her waist. He takes a seat next to Lyra on a long sofa coloured deep purple and sinks deeply into it.

"So, Lyra, whose your young friend?" The old woman asks, "I hope he's not another one of your boys."

"His names Roger, grandmother, and no, he's not one of my boys. He's from another universe-he fell through a couple of days ago in Oxford. We'll talk more when the others arrive." The old woman nods and the two of them fall into the kind of light conversation that often seems to happens when you're meeting your relatives. At a pause in the prattle Roger leans over the Lyra "What others?"

Lyra looks at him solidly, casts a glance at her Grandmother who seems to give an almost imperceptible nod, and begins to speak. "We have a group, a group of us thinkers who prefer not to merely accept the Churches view on things. My father started it a long time ago, and I've kept it going ever since. We discuss what we can do to undermine the church and try to help out those, like yourself, who need refuge for one reason or another. I arranged a meeting last night after you had gone to sleep and hopefully we can get you away with one of them today."

Time passed as they waited. The old woman snoozed in her chair and Lyra pulled a book out of her bag and began to read. Gradually people flowed into the room, tall, serious men and a few young women. There were too many of them for Roger to remember every name as the Butler announced them, but he picked up on a few of the more impressive ones. The Duke of London-a fat, ruddy faced man- was there, as was the Master of Jordon collage who bowed low to Lyra after he entered and suggested that the two of them shared a cab on the way back to Oxford. There was the Professor Emitus of Cambridge, the Editor of The Times and the head of Saint Superior Collage in London. Each one seemed to have some key role in society, and Roger began to realise what a extraordinary group this was. Professors, teachers, ministers, journalists, scientists, royalty...all mixing together to try and take down the church. He felt left out as the chatter gradually built up around him, feeling excluded as Lyra leant forward and began to discuss Genesis with the Prince of Yarkshire. Only him and the old woman where not speaking.

Finally there was a break in the incessant arrivals of new recruits. Lyra looked around and calmly banged on the table for quiet. There was immediate silence. "Are we all assembled?" She asked and the voice of the Butler came from near the door.

"The Dean of the San Austin University is not yet here, madam." Lyra swore under her breath and then looked up and prepared to speak again, before there was an urgent bang on the door followed by two loud bangs. The room froze. A yell. Another series of bangs and then a yell for help and half a dozen of they younger men leave the room in sudden flood, reaching inside their jackets as they go.

Silence.

Then they begin to return, one by one, some with bloody stained jackets and palms, others with a vaguely shocked look on their faces. Finally the Butler himself enters and he's the most bloodied of them all, his white surcoat stained red, but he seems fine. He bows to the assembled guests and half-smiles. "I am afraid that the Dean of San Austin University will be unable to join us, however I may present his assistant Bill Blake, who can act of his behalf." A tall man enters the room, swathed in a oilskins which he quickly hung on a peg by the door. He turned and gave a wide smile to the assembled horde and a small bow to the Grandmother before taking his seat, his Bloodhound daemon by his side.


End file.
